Originally published on the CGS blog on January 22, 2015.
Progress results only from the fact that there are some men and women who refuse to believe that what they know to be right cannot be done.
–Russell Davenport
With the US presidential campaign preliminaries already being discussed in the Democratic and Republican parties, it may be useful to recall one of the most innovative of campaign strategists: Russell Davenport, the spirit behind those chanting “We want Willkie” at the 1940 Republican convention in Philadelphia.
Russell Davenport was one of the founders of the early 1939 World Citizens’ Association along with Quincy Wright, professor of international law at the University of Chicago, and Adlai Stevenson, then a young Illinois lawyer. Davenport was a resolute opponent of the isolationist movement then strong in the Republican Party (and among some Democrats as well). As he wrote,
There come times in history of every people when destiny knocks on their door with an iron insistence…the shape of things to come depends on us: our moral decisions, our wisdom, our vision and our will.
However, it was less because of his role in the world citizens’ movement than because he was the editor of Fortune in Henry Luce’s publishing empire that early supporters of Wendell Willkie brought the two men together in the summer of 1939 at a Fortune brainstorming session with industrialists, bankers, labor union leaders, economists, and sociologists.
Willkie had been a Democrat most of his adult life and was considered a “wild card” among the Republican elite. Moreover, he had never run for a political office, and to start out by running for President struck some as premature. Willkie was disliked by Democrats as a renegade and by Republicans as an interloper. He was a lawyer for large corporations of the sort that advertised in Fortune and had defended the big electric-generating companies against government regulations. Since the TVA and its state-sponsored creation of energy was one of the major projects of FDR’s New Deal, Wendell Willkie became an opponent of Roosevelt’s policies, but without any base among Republicans whom he had joined only at the end of FDR’s first term.
Russell Davenport was a fellow Yale classmate that Henry Luce had brought first to Time, thenLife and Fortune. Davenport was more of a writer and idea person rather than an editor. He had imagination, and Fortune under his editorship produced a number of in-depth reports on world economic conditions. Davenport also edited and published in the April 1940 issue Wendell Willkie’s campaign credo: “We, the People.”
Davenport put his energy, writing skills, and contacts in the publishing world at the service of Wendell Willkie in 1940. The political amateurs with access to considerable money from publishing and other business sources overwhelmed the Republican political establishment, who were divided in their support between Robert Taft, Senator from Ohio, and Thomas Dewey, Governor of New York. The political professionals did not see the Willkie train moving down the tracks until it was too late.
In the 1930s and 1940s, primary elections for party candidates had not taken on the role that they have today, and party conventions were times of political deals in “smoke-filled rooms.” The Willkie campaign, with Davenport as “personal representative,” filled the visitors’ galleries and balcony with Willkie supporters who took up the chant, “We want Willkie” at every occasion with growing force. On the sixth ballot, Willkie was nominated for President and began his campaign just as World War II broke out with the German attack on Norway and France.
Davenport took leave from Fortune to be chief writer on Willkie’s campaign train, which crossed the US several times. Davenport wrote speeches which attacked FDR’s internal policies while supporting his international role in helping England under Nazi attack. Franklin Roosevelt won easily, but Willkie received more votes than had Republicans in the two earlier presidential contests of FDR.
Willkie’s style and the fine prose with which Davenport had filled Willkie’s speeches had impressed Roosevelt and his circle, in particular his right-hand man Harry Hopkins, who was a personal friend of Davenport’s. In 1942, Roosevelt decided to send Wendell Willkie on a round-the-world tour to meet allied leaders to show that the US was united on world policy across the political party divisions. Thus Willkie began a series of meetings with world leaders, including the new Soviet partner Joseph Stalin, as well as going to Africa, the Middle East and China. On his return, Willkie had notes and impressions that Russell Davenport helped pull together, suggesting “One World” as the title.
Willkie’sOne World became a best-seller and the term “one world” became part of everyday vocabulary. World citizens were called “one worlders,” and the isolationist wing of the Republican Party became largely powerless. Unfortunately, Wendell Willkie did not live long after the publication of his book. He died in the autumn of 1944 at the age of 52.
Davenport’s writing skills and imagination were also largely absent from the organized world citizens’ movement which began structuring itself at the end of World War II and the start of the Cold War. His health declined, and most of his writing projects were left unfinished. The more developed were published as The Dignity of Man after his death in 1954 at the age of 53. A little like “We want Willkie,” Davenport’s contribution to cosmopolitan thinking has faded from the scene, his skill with words often replaced by more academic styles. Yet destiny keeps knocking, and the shape of things to come still depends on our moral decisions, our wisdom, and our wills.
